Centrifugal fans or blowers are commonly used for directing a forced flow of air through an air duct. In a typical blower assembly, air is drawn into a housing through an air inlet and discharged from the housing through an air outlet. Blower assemblies typically include an electrically driven fan wheel that rotates in a predetermined direction in the housing. The fan wheel includes one or more curved blades, which draw the air into the fan wheel axially along an axis of rotation and discharge the air radially outwardly therefrom.
Typically, in climate control applications such as heating, ventilating, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems of a vehicle, the centrifugal blowers are required to operate effectively and efficiently over a range of operating conditions of the vehicle. However, current centrifugal blowers consume significant electrical energy which negatively affects a fuel economy of the vehicle. Further, during high load operating conditions of the vehicle, energy consumption of the HVAC system generally accounts for a significant portion of the available electrical energy of the vehicle. Thus, minimizing an electrical load of the centrifugal blower is critical to improving an overall efficiency of the vehicle.
Current centrifugal blowers also produce inadequate air flow during extreme driving conditions for a desired customer comfort level. As such, vehicle manufactures are demanding an increase in a capacity of the centrifugal blower to meet the desired customer comfort level without increasing a package size thereof.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to produce a blower assembly that includes a housing and a fan wheel for rotating a volume of air entering the blower assembly, wherein a cost, a package size, and a complexity thereof are minimized and an efficiency thereof is maximized.